A pair of high school students in Baltimore County placed third this week in a national competition that sought to test how quickly the youths could diagnose and repair car troubles.

Anthony Critcher and Brik Wisniewski of Eastern Technical High School in Essex competed against 49 other two-person teams, one from each state, in the Ford/AAA Student Auto Skills National Finals, according to AAA. The 64th annual competition was held in Dearborn, Mich.

The teenagers are enrolled in a two-year Ford training program and will have full scholarships toward a degree at CCBC-Catonsville. The third-place win makes them eligible for thousands of dollars more in scholarships and prizes, AAA said.

Before Tuesday's competition, Critcher and Wisniewski, both 18, won a similar state competition in which they fixed a dozen car "bugs" in just 41 minutes.

In the Ford/AAA competition, teams had to diagnose and fix intentionally created car troubles — digital, mechanical and electrical. Then they had to race the cars to the finish line.

Critcher and Wisniewski successfully fixed all the car "bugs" but did not get a perfect score on a written exam. The winning team was from Vale, Ore., and the second-place team from Warrenton, Va.